


Memoria.

by estriel



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, Complicated Relationships, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:58:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22835758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estriel/pseuds/estriel
Summary: In the end, Javi lets them all go. All except one. All except Yuzu.
Relationships: Javier Fernández/Yuzuru Hanyu
Comments: 26
Kudos: 109





	Memoria.

**Author's Note:**

> Soundtrack: ["Come As You Are" - Imaginary Future](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1jm2inUmAU)

_Come as you are, as you were  
As I want you to be  
As a friend, as a friend  
As a known enemy_

In the end, Javi lets them all go.

Cortney was never going to turn into anything serious, they both know it – a puppy romance of two kids unused to being on their own, seeking simple comforts in each other’s arms. It is fun while it lasts and shrugged off easily when it’s over, like that coat that you outgrow over the summer.

Miki… Breaking up with Miki feels like peeling onions, lengthy, painful and soaked in tears, but necessary, if they want to move on and find some peace as their lives diverge ever further, with Miki retired in Japan, Javi in Canada working towards Olympic dreams. 

Marina throws a plate at him, in the end, and threatens to break up if he doesn’t _stop_, if he goes to Canada or Japan or wherever he is keeping that _whore _he is cheating on her with. He tells her he has never cheated on her – which is true, in the physical sense at least. Javi never tells Marina that she was outraged about the wrong person, not even after he admits it to himself.

Ayaka… well. She is a stand-in and Javi should have known better.

He lets them all go. All except one. All except Yuzu.

It’s summer 2021 before he finally finds the courage to stand in front of Yuzu, backstage at a show, and not look away when those eyes land on him, inquiring and interested, the way they have been for years now.

It is a casual affair, it seems at first. They kiss in a bathroom stall, needy and inelegant, and when Yuzu’s muscular thigh somehow ends up pressed against the hard-on in Javi’s pants, Javi all but whimpers and wonders why it has fucking taken them nearly a decade to get here.

When he’s got Yuzu flat on his back later that night, wanton and lewd and begging Javi to fuck him, Javi stops for a moment. Draws a breath. Looks down at Yuzu – at his blown eyes, at the way his hair is plastered to his temples with sweat, at the crisp pink of his lips – and a dull ache spills through his chest. They have been everything – friends, rivals, enemies on the ice, everything and anything in between. Everything but this, lovers. In that moment, as he stares down at Yuzu, naked, gorgeous and everything none of his girlfriends could ever be, Javi almost balks. Because he feels there should be more, somehow.

But then Yuzu calls him by his name, _Ja-vi_, a breathless, mindless plea, a tug at Javi’s hair, and Javi does exactly as Yuzu wants, because how could he not. How could he ever say no to him?

When the tour ends, they part ways with a hug, a smile, a friendly _see you, miss you, text me sometime, ok?_ As if everything was business as usual, as if nothing had changed. As if Javi didn’t feel like his heart will shatter the second he steps out of the hotel and into the car that will take him to the airport.

“Yuzu,” he whispers, just as Yuzu is about to turn away, the easy smile already half slipping off his face.

Yuzu opens his mouth – a strangled little breath, his mouth shaping those two syllables of Javi’s name without a sound… Nothing more. Then Yuzu swallows, glances at the floor before looking back up. “I – my skating. The Olympics, I need to – “ His hand is shaking as he lifts it – an involuntary movement, Javi is sure. Then Yuzu catches himself, fingers halfway to Javi’s face. He drops the hand. It curls into a fist by Yuzu’s side.

Javi nods. “I know,” he says, and is not sure whether he hates Yuzu for his stubborn dedication, or loves him for it. “Ganbatte,” he adds and turns to walk away, bones heavy and aching.

When he looks back over his shoulder – because of course he does, who is he kidding – Javi catches Yuzu staring at him. His eyes are shining.

Javi had not wanted to let go this time. It is poor consolation that, maybe, neither had Yuzu.

_Take your time, hurry up  
The choice is yours, don't be late  
Take a rest as a friend  
As an old_

_Memoria, memoria_

Javi tries. He is not even sure why he bothers but that’s what he’s been doing all his life – trying, and falling, failing, and sometimes, just sometimes, staying on his feet when it mattered most. He tries to put the memory of Yuzu to rest, at least a little bit, at least for a while, so he can maybe kiss some other woman, or man, and be happy with it.

Unlike in skating, it never works. He fails every single time. 

There is a time during which he refuses to take Yuzu’s calls, answer his texts. If Yuzu can be stubborn, so can he. If Yuzu wants his dreams, he can chase them alone. It’s not Javi’s job to always be there for him.

It doesn’t mean that Javi stops watching. He watches every competition, every one of these damn quad axels that Yuzu somehow mostly lands – and sometimes doesn’t – clutching the stupid stuffed Tigger Yuzu had given him all these years ago, when they could still roll all over one another in the green room without causing a furore in the skating world, without some crazed fangirl threatening to kill herself if Yuzu ever touched some woman the way he touched Javi. As if Yuzu would, Javi always wanted to scream when some rumor or another came floating around. Now he wants to scream when he watches the galas – not because Yuzu seems to be having fun, but because the joy doesn’t go quite as deep as it once had, and even though he stubbornly refuses to think about it, Javi knows it’s his fault.

Then Yuzu falters, takes a fall that looks worse than it turns out to be in the end, and Javi cannot take it any longer.

“Yuzu,” he croaks into the phone when the call connects. “Are you okay, please tell me the truth, are you really okay?”

There is silence. Javi grips the phone so hard his fingers hurt. “I’m fine, Javi,” Yuzu says eventually. And then: “I missed you.”

_Come doused in mud, soaked in bleach  
As I want you to be  
As a trend, as a friend  
As an old_

_Memoria_

It’s reckless. Irresponsible. Which would be nothing new – reckless and irresponsible once used to be Javi’s M.O., if you asked his coaches. What’s new is that Yuzu goes along with it. Javi takes a flight to Moscow the same evening – and thank god it’s only Russia, not China or Japan, because then he may not have made it in time.

They are kissing the moment Yuzu opens the hotel room door for him in the middle of the night, Yuzu’s fingers finding his face, his shoulders, the zipper of Javi’s jacket, the buttons of his shirt. Nothing about it feels casual. Not the way Yuzu starts crying before they even make it to the bed, struggling to breathe because he refuses to break the kiss even for a second. Not the way he caresses Javi’s hair, his cheek, all shaking hands and feather-light touches, as if he was afraid Javi might disappear. Not the way Yuzu holds his hand the _entire time_ Javi is inside him, palm to palm, fingers entwined with Javi’s.

It’s not casual. It’s raw and real and Javi knows he’s never getting out of this, that he doesn’t ever _want to_.

“Please,” he mumbles when they’re done, sticky and exhausted and somehow perfect. He presses his face into Yuzu’s neck, finding the fluttering pulse under Yuzu’s flushed skin, under the purpling mouth-shaped bruise Yuzu will have to cover up with make-up for the gala. “Please win the damn Olympics so we can be –“ his voice breaks right there, and he waves his hand between them.

A slightly choked-up laugh escapes from Yuzu’s throat. Javi feels it vibrate through him. “It doesn’t matter if I win,” Yuzu says and pushes at Javi’s shoulder, making Javi look at him. “Gold or no,” he says, and Javi knows it still matters to him, the idea of gold, the idea of being the _only man ever_ to do that, but Yuzu shrugs. “We will be,” Yuzu finishes, eyes softening and with a tiny, sweet smile on his face that Javi knows is only for him.

_And I swear that I don't have a gun_

_We will be_, Javi tells himself as he works and waits in Spain, while Yuzu works and waits in Toronto. _We will be_, he tells himself over and over again, even though some nights he misses Yuzu so hard it physically hurts.

It’s not like Javi can do anything else about this, about them. It’s not like he wants to. He can wait.

What he _wants _to do something about – but still can’t – is the situation. He watches, helpless, powerless, as Yuzu works himself into the ground for a fraction of a point, clawing back every tiny advantage they unjustly take away from him competition after competition. Javi wants to spit in their faces, take Yuzu away from them. Because they don’t deserve him.

“They’re going to cry when you’re gone,” Javi tells him one night, incensed, “they’re going to realize what they had only when they lose you.”

“Javi,” Yuzu says, calm, and Javi hears the smile in his voice. “I don’t really care anymore.”

Javi sits there, halfway across the world, a little stunned. Yuzu likes winning more than anything else. “What?” he says, dumb-struck.

“I don’t care,” Yuzu repeats gently. “I’m happy.” There is a pause. Javi has just finished shaking his head when Yuzu speaks again. “Because I have you. I love you.”

_As an old_

_memoria_

Beijing happens. Javi is so nervous it makes him sick, and it’s worse than _skating_ in the Olympics, and how is that even possible?! He watches, and cheers, and nearly cries – so proud and elated and happy – when Yuzu skates, when they hang a medal around Yuzu’s neck.

Then it’s over, and Javi watches on his phone’s screen as Yuzu smiles at the journalists gathered in the press conference, eyes twinkling, and says: “This was my last competition.”

And when they lie in bed together later that night, both somehow wrung out and tired even though it was only Yuzu skating, Javi tucks a few unruly strands of hair behind Yuzu’s ear, then kisses Yuzu’s forehead. “So you’ve let go,” he says, and cannot stop the goofy smile that creeps onto his face.

“Hai,” Yuzu nods. “I let go one love,” he says, nose crinkling in amusement, and wraps his arm around Javi’s waist. “Not letting go the other.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this made sense, in a way? Let me know what you think in the comments if you feel so inclined. And If you're 18+ and would like to come chat with me and a whole bunch of other fic authors from the figure skating fandom, come join us and talk to us in our Discord server. You can join using [this link](https://discord.gg/DyxBV5mXg2).


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